00:00CM Punk's next PPV matches revealed, The Bloodline plans leaked, a major star has a
00:05return date and more. I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:14The Bloodline and their wars continue to be one of WWE's biggest drawing angles and
00:20storylines. This past Friday Smackdown continued its ratings trend, pulling in 2.2 million
00:25viewers once again to see Jacob Fatu absolutely destroy Roman Reigns and make him do this
00:30face. The Bloodline are now 3-for-3 on great mean faces. This one, Solo Sokoa at Summerslam
00:36and The Rock at WrestleMania, the undisputed kings.
00:40Since Solo Sokoa launched his own Bloodline group of Jacob Fatu and the Gorillas of Destiny,
00:44fans have speculated that we could be heading towards a War Games match at Survivor Series
00:49in November, with Roman reuniting with The Usos and Sami Zayn in an OG Bloodline vs.
00:55Bloodline 2000 war. And it would appear that is the case. PWN are reporting that this is
01:01the current creative direction for the Bloodline, but the only thing that isn't clear is to
01:06whether this is going to be 4-on-4 or 5-on-5. There have been reports saying that Heiko
01:11Leo is heading to WWE so he could join either side, and some fans are speculating that Cody
01:16Rhodes himself could align with Roman and crew for just one night.
01:21And speaking of War Games, this is reportedly the time we'll see the return of Charlotte
01:25Flair. Flair went down with a serious knee injury two weeks after last year's Survivor
01:30Series in a match with Asuka, and Flair has been teasing a return to the ring as of late
01:34on social media. And according to Viper on PWN's Discord, November is the planned timetable
01:39return for Flair in the ring, which would be just in time for War Games. Flair will
01:44reportedly join the Smackdown brand alongside her IRL husband Andrade. How would you book
01:48the return of Charlotte Flair? Let me know in the comments down below.
01:52And speaking of future PPV plans, we may now have a complete roadmap for the feud between
01:57CM Punk and Drew McIntyre. We'll have more on this in the Raw review, but it was officially
02:01confirmed that Punk and Drew will square off again at Bash in Berlin, and this time it
02:06will be a strap match. And now Worked Wrestling have posted on Twitter that this is just the
02:10second of three planned matches, with the final taking place at Bad Blood in a Hell
02:16in a Cell match. Which really has been speculated by fans as soon as WWE announced they were
02:20bringing that PPV name back. The last Bad Blood in 2011 saw Summer of Punk, Ruiners,
02:24Triple H and Kevin Nash face off, but the more iconic one is the 1997 show which had
02:29the first Hell in a Cell between Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker, and also saw the debut
02:33of Kane. Hilariously, it's also the match type that Punk said he didn't want to do
02:37at the Clash in the Castle press conference. We don't have our American correspondent
02:41here with us today, but before we get into the Raw review, here's a word from this
02:45episode's sponsor.
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04:01Hacking.
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04:09And now it's time for my review of Monday Night Raw, a.k.a. the, yeah, pretty missable
04:13episode edition of Monday Night Raw, in about 5 minutes.
04:16The show opened with Randy Orton, who said that he just wanted this to be about the World
04:20Championship, but Gunther made it personal by bringing up his family. Gunther came out
04:24to get some fantastic heat from this crowd along with USA Chant, and Ludwig Kaiser attacked
04:29Orton from behind. Though he managed to fight him off briefly, the numbers game took over
04:33and the heel stood tall. It turns out that Randy Orton isn't the only one who can strike
04:36from behind.
04:37This was a fine opening segment that set up the show's main event of Orton vs. Kaiser.
04:42It was your typical two weeks out from the PPV angle.
04:45Sheamus beat Pete Dunne in a very good and physical match with a very creative finish.
04:49Dunne had targeted Sheamus' hand all match after attacking it with the Shillelagh last
04:53week, so he wrapped it in the corner turnbuckle. And while the referee argued with Pete Dunne
04:57about this, Sheamus ripped his hand free and ran across the ring to hit a bro kick from
05:01out of nowhere for the win.
05:02And I hope you enjoyed that bit of wrestling, because you're not going to get a lot more
05:05of it for a bit.
05:06We had Kofi Kingston backstage checking on why Xavier Woods has been a bit off as of
05:10late. Gee, I wonder why Kofi? Is it because you made plans behind his back to bring in
05:14a new member to your group and then took the mic out of his hands last week to talk over
05:18him? Woods put all of this up and Kofi explained that they weren't given a chance to get
05:21over 10 years ago when the group formed, and Odyssey Jones wasn't being given a chance
05:25either. Woods, realising that maybe he's overreacting, made peace with Kofi for their
05:30trios match later on.
05:31We got a recap of WWE at Fanatics Fest and a video promo for Brom Breaker talking about
05:35why he's awesome. Then we got a recap of Ivy Nile turning heel last week, then a backstage
05:39promo of her being officially welcomed into American Made.
05:42And then she had a match with Maxine Dupree that really didn't get started as the lights
05:46ca-chunked around it and Abby the Witch appeared in the ring for a no contest. Maxine disappeared
05:50as the rest of American Males got in the ring to protect Ivy Nile, but the rest of the Wyatts
05:55appeared around the ring and cleared house with Uncle Howdy hitting Chad Gable with another
05:58sister Abigail. They announced later in the night that Howdy and Gable will clash on next
06:03week's Raw in Uncle Howdy's first match and Bo Dallas' first match in about five
06:08years.
06:09Damian Priest and Rhea Ripley cut a promo on NotStreetTrash, Triple H is reading your
06:12tweets and saw that you did not like that name, and CM Punk came out for more talking.
06:17It's no secret that I've really enjoyed the CM Punk and Drew McIntyre feud just a
06:20few weeks ago. I was saying that it was WWE's feud of the year. Look, I know that some people
06:26don't like that it's about a bracelet and you make the argument of, if this was
06:29AEW you'd hate it, but I think the emotions and physicality between the two has been great
06:34and I really enjoyed their SummerSlam match. But this was kind of a nothing segment. Punk
06:40came out to talk about sports teams, about being gone for ten years, how the WWE is a
06:44hot product at the moment, how the fans are great, etc. etc. and he also announced that
06:48he and Drew will have a strap match. A violent match where two men are tied together with
06:52nowhere to run and you win the match by...touching all four corners. This rivalry is heating
06:59up now. Now they're touching corners.
07:02Jokes aside, this is a good next step for the feud. Yes, the four corners thing is lame,
07:06but the idea of Punk and Drew being tied together is thematically rather nice. The problem is
07:11that these two men have been feuding since January, arguably earlier than that, and they've
07:15pretty much said all there is to say.
07:17We don't want you here. You're a cancer. I've been gone for ten years. You're obsessed
07:22with me. You're a liar and a hypocrite. This is why this bracelet means a lot to me.
07:27I think Larry and April will be safer with me.
07:30And this segment kind of encapsulated a lot of that. The segment had a hotline to end,
07:35but the crowd didn't react because, well, they've heard it all before. This is still
07:39a great feud, but it might need something a little different to keep it a hot feud.
07:44And if you liked all that talking, Dom and Liv then cut a promo on the Terror Twins.
07:48Finally some wrestling took place as Odyssey Jones teamed with The New Day to take on the
07:52Final Testament. Woods looked for the hot tag, but Kofi tagged in Jones instead who
07:56ran wild and won it for their team. Rhea and Priest discussed his match with Dominik Mysterio
08:00backstage and said that they knew it's a trap, but it was worth it to get his hands on Dom.
08:05Bronzer Reed beat The Miz in a glorified Squatch match with a no-DQ stipulation, which I think
08:08is Triple H's kryptonite, and Reed won with a Tsunami. He was about to hit another one,
08:12but BRON came down for a stare down and they'll have a match next week.
08:16The feud between Ludwig Kaiser and Sheamus will continue and Bron Breaker revealed that
08:19a tournament kicks off next week to crown a new number one contender to his IC title.
08:23He channeled his inner Scotty by calling himself a genetic freak and his inner Snitsky
08:27by saying that beating people up is not his fault. Jey Uso later announced that he'll
08:31be focusing on singles divisions again and will enter into the IC title tournament.
08:35Dominik Mysterio and Damian Priest had a match which had DQ written all over it, but you
08:38can't ever DQ if the match doesn't start. Judgement Day jumped Priest before the bell
08:42and he took them all out. Rhea then took Dom out of the ring and was about to put him through
08:46the announcers table when Liv Morgan made the save.
08:48The numbers got the better of the Terror Twins and Judgement Day finally stood tall over them.
08:52This was a very good angle and it was great to see New Judgement Day get some of their heat back.
08:56The Unholy Union, unsurprisingly because they've set up a tag defense against another team,
09:00retained their tag titles over Damage Control and Pure Fusion Collective,
09:03who I'm pretty sure tried to buy WCW in 2001.
09:06The entrances got little reaction, but the actions certainly did as it was a really good match.
09:10The finish saw Shayna Baszler get in the Kirifuda Clutch on Kairi Sane and
09:13Isla Dawn hit a Backstabber on Baszler and Kay Lee Ray hit a Swanton Bomb onto all of them for the win.
09:17A very cool finish and now the obligatory, this was your only women's match on the show, do better WWE.
09:23And the main event saw Randy Orton beat Ludwig Heiser in a match which you can picture beat for beat with your eyes closed.
09:27He brawled with Gunther after the match and it capped off a very skippable episode of Monday Night Raw.
09:32Nothing bad, but not a lot great either.
09:34Now please do go and watch my video about the disappointing history of Neil Blomkamp's failed Alien 5 movie
09:39and why it did not get made in the latest episode of Cutscene.
09:43A huge thank you to everyone who has checked it out over the weekend,
09:46but I really would appreciate it if all of you could click the video on screen right now
09:50because it will help it fall into the almighty YouTube algorithm which I have zero control over.
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